A flurry of announcements and roadmaps from Intel this week shed light on the company's 5.5 Watt Penryn and the 4 Watt Diamondville processors. The company went one step further today, claiming it can get a fairly powerful x86 processor down to 0.6W for ultra mobile devices.

Intel first brought us news
of Intel's Silverthorne processor in April of last year. At the
time, details were light on the processor and it was just known as a successor
to the 90nm Stealey-based A100 and A110 that were introduced at the
time.

As the months progressed, more details began to leak out regarding the Menlow platform and the Silverthorne processor. Today, Intel officially
pulled the wraps off the Silverthorne processor and the Menlow
platform.

Silverthorne, a two-issue processor designed from the ground up, is now known as the Intel Atom processor. Atom
processors based on Silverthorne are aimed at Mobile Internet Devices
(MIDs).

To confuse matters a bit, Intel’s Diamondville
processors will also fall under the Intel Atom processor nomenclature. Diamondville-based Atom processors are
derived from Silverthorne, feature
SMT technology and will be available in both single core and dual core versions.
Atom processors based on Diamondville will see duty in low-cost
notebooks (known as "netbooks") and desktop computers (also called
"nettops").

As previously
reported by DailyTech, Diamondville-based Atom processor will
fit within a 4W (single core) to 8W (dual core) TDP envelope. The single core, Diamondville-based
Atom 230 will launch at 1.6GHz and will feature a 533MHz FSB and 512k of L2
cache. TDP for the Atom 230 is listed at 4W.

Silverthorne-based Atom processors heading for MIDs will have a TDP
ranging from 0.6W to 2.5W and will top out at 1.8GHz. Sources inside Intel hint that the 0.6W version of the processor reaches just over 500 MHz.

Anand Lal Shimpi conjectures on the difference between the two cores. "Intel lists the 1.6GHz Diamondville TDP as 4W, a bit higher than what you'll see in MIDs but I'm guessing it'll run at a higher voltage and thus be a higher yielding part that's cheaper to produce, resulting in the higher TDP."

Intel confirms Diamondville will be the first Intel processor to support simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) since the Pentium 4. The entire Silverthorne architecture supports SMT, though Intel has only confirmed Diamondville processors as SMT-enabled at this time.

Intel says that a single Atom processor measures just 25mm2 and
contains over 47 million transistors. According to Intel, 11 Atom
processors would fit on a penny and it's built on Intel's high-k 45nm
manufacturing process.

"This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest
transistors," said Intel's Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and
Marketing Officer Sean Maloney. "This small wonder is a fundamental new
shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience
on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the
industry."

The overall Menlow platform is now known as Intel Centrino Atom. The
Intel Centrino Atom platform will include an Intel Atom processor, Intel 945GSE
chipset and a wireless radio.

Although Intel expects the bulk of its Atom processors to see duty in MIDs,
netbooks and nettops, the company also sees the huge potential for sales in
consumer electronic devices, embedded applications and thin clients.

Consumers can expect to see the next generation Eee PC with an Intel Atom
processor onboard -- HP may be wise to include an Intel Atom on its 2133
sub-notebook, but rumor has it that the company already decided on a VIA
platform.

Comments

Threshold

Username

Password

remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

They have been lagging behind for near 3 years now. They REALLY need to blow us away. I'm talking 32 nm - 45 nm processors that are competitive in energy consumption, speed and price. It seems that every day I'm seeing fewer and fewer AMD powered machines and the last thing we need is Intel to be the only processing making company out there.

I am running mostly AMD (cpu - 65w, 3850 video card - no big watt saver there) simply because the price/performance ratio is just right. Generalizing, I don't see spending 3x the price of my existing load out to get 20-30fps over the 100fps that I already get. If one wants to niggle over $100-200 for 10-20fps more then go ahead. I sit comfy and play every game I want to play 10-20fps less and still be happy. Don't believe in the hype, just buy whatever is 2x the speed you have now when you can afford it. You don't need to upgrade to compensate for anything, really.

Anyways, it just seems to me like Intel and AMD could have been doing this all along. Oh well, let me know when the desktop MB comes out that can multicore 8-16 of the 8w dual cores, and I'll show my enthusiasm by building a Linux box to based on it.

AMD see history repeating - once again they are the less desirable processor company, and compete based only on price. Intel had some plans for a 80-core chip - yet, while you might see this in desktop motherboards, you won't see more dual socket (or quad socket or three socket or whatever) desktop motherboards than you see now (not many).

Since I'm not an English teacher or major I will suit the topic as debatable since AMD would stand as a company and not as more than one. I could be wrong. Then again I'm native to a non english speaking country

Actually, AMD had been leading in laptop performance since 2003. They were behind on power-usage though. The Pentium M was an excellent CPU for power-efficiency, but couldn't compare to AMD's A64 platform when it came to processing intensive applications.

But, it really doesn't matter right now, all that matters is the fact that we are seeing very little competition from AMD. While I don't think many investors would see a bankrupt AMD, it still doesn't bode well for progress.

In the short term, however: holy crap, I can get a q6600 for $245!?!?!?

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer